On 10.12.2005 06:33 jmiddendorf@hmc.edu wrote:[Dlevel 9, power 23, 0.1Mturns]The most current in a long line of attempted giant necromancers. I'm sure I can net a high score with one of these...maybe even in a small number of turns.

Devices, wrestling, and magic should be plenty of offense (and some defense as well). Some amount of skills are also necessary, as giants aren't that good at most skills. Will have pretty good hit points, being a giant and all, even after taking the oath. Offed Mugash unexpectedly. Thought he was a large kobald, much to my suprise. Offing his escort consumed most of my supplies, but I found a recall scroll among the goodies, and hopped back to town to resupply.

Spellcasters are kinda slow, because waiting for sp is slower than waiting for hp, I think. I'll try to be aggressive, though. I've been diving reasonably fast, it feels like.

On 10.12.2005 14:41 Bandobras wrote:Really fast play, but quite a lot of kills (221). What were these? I guess, with quests you get less kills for more XP. Yet, I believe no quests make possible faster diving.

I've been trying to dive quickly, but I'm not sure I really am. I suppose if I dive linearlly, the win would be around 1.2 Mturns, but I doubt I will. Part of the quick diving is no quests. Means I don't have to worry as much about things, like having a particular resistance or SI, etc. for a quest, thus reducing scumming.

Offed Wormtongue just now, with 2 invoke spirits and a magic bolt. The flail of battle would be an amazing item, but I'm not into that whole "weapons" thing.

Boots of free action are really nice. Means not having to worry about that soon (about 5 dlevels).

Not much of a change since before. Continuing to dive, and get items. Rod of lightning bolts is a nice find. So is =oCon+2 and _CMW. Those will greatly increase my survivability.

I bring up almost nothing worth selling, yet I seem to find enough raw treasure to keep me above water (in stock of potions, stat restoring, books, etc.). I guess diving really generates a comparable amount of dough. It'll be nice when I get identify, but that's a long way off. I'll need to keep rods of disarming for once. That's kinda strange.

I wish I had any idea what that other ring was doing. I guess it could be skill/deadliness or sustain mind.

Well, as the dump mentions, I offed Bolg. What it doesn't mention is how close the fight was, like 3 times. Some hasty teleports and some close calls left me pretty drained, but I managed to get him slowed (via Invoke Spirits), and blinked into a good position to hit him with wands, rods, and spells. I got lucky; offing him netted a unided !oInt, which bumped my Int from 17 (or was it 16) to 18/30. Talk about your lucky potion quaffs!

Shagrat was on the level, but I found him after teleporting away from Bolg, so I left him. I was pretty drained, so I decided to leave him alone for the time being.

I also missed killing a 'G' bones file to a trapdoor. Oh well. 'G's would have been annoying anyway.

On 11.12.2005 23:15 Bandobras wrote:> I also missed killing a 'G' bones file to a trapdoor.

One of the more annoying things for me. If I'm not mistaken, Feather Fall protects from trap doors...

On 12.12.2005 04:39 jmiddendorf@hmc.edu wrote:Missed your first comment, Bandobras; When you made the comment, I had around half the kills that other similarly levelled characters had, and now, I have around a quarter or so.

I've never found bat form to be of much use; you get +5 speed, but str and int go down, as I recall. I guess it might be ok for a device wielder. That's probably how I'll off Morgy (assuming...), but for now, I use melee and some spells and devices. Phase door and healing + zods/wands of *bolt are pretty effective.

On 12.12.2005 16:31 jmiddendorf@hmc.edu wrote:[dlevel 41, power 58, 0.5Mturns] Well, I found a bug where trapped chests (strange magicks) can duplicate themselves. I stopped after I convinced myself that they're pretty much infinite. I also stopped after I got Nevrast. I really like Nevrast.

I've been diving a lot, and things are getting hard! Missing cold resist, a mature dragon nearly killed me from full hp! On the same level, I offed mature black and green dragons, Amberite, Khim, Ibun, a hellhound. I also ran from a night mare. Sheesh! I don't know where these things came from, but I didn't get the loot. Did pick up Thalketoth, and I'd love a helm of seeing. At least I've got see invis as a spell.

Resist cold would also be nice. I suppose restoring my con would also help with the hitpoint thing.

On 13.12.2005 02:52 jmiddendorf@hmc.edu wrote:[dlevel 50, power 62, 0.75Mturns] Well, not much of an equipment change. Decided to swap out the =Con+2 for RCold, as I'm getting deep enough that that would be a real issue. In fact, I'm pretty sure Castamir could have instakilled me without it. He was hard enough with it, though. Ran through a bunch of cold balls to kill him, and a lot of healing; we traded a lot of blows, between both of us healing and both of us hitting pretty hard. Ran him out of mana, though, and finished him with rods.

Other notables seen include Vargo (nearly killed me even though I *have* fire resist), Bill, Ulfang, Ar Pharazon, and some lesser uniques.

This diving thing is tough. Finally got restore skills, so now I'll actually be able to cast genocide again ;) Genocide 'G' every level from here until I get see invisible. I really hate Ghosts.

I'm still a ways away from interrogate (id). It'll be nice to get. I'm sure there's good equipment down here, but I'll be darned to tell which bits it is. Already I'm iding a bunch of random stuff to find somethign useful. Oh, I'd really love a RoP out of depth. The staff of speed is new. I'll have fun playing with it. Blindness and see invis woudl be really nice (same w/ telepathy). More con is always good too.

I'm really slowing down on this diving thing. Everything is so tough! And I'm not even really getting better (except for stat gain potions), as I don't know what's worth picking up.

I don't think I'll actually finish in 1M turns, like I hoped, but I'll try to give it a run for the money.

Well, I've kind of stagnated. Too many hard hitting monsters to kill, not enough hp and damage dealing capacity. Also, I've got some good equip, but it doesn't go well together. Just grabbed Arvedui, which helped replace a ring of cold resist, which allowed me to go back to nevrast. I'd really like a shied of resistance (or better), so I can wield caspanion and holhenneth, and I'd like gloves of freee action to let me wield something else in a ring slot.

I've got more than half a mind to go questing and genocide the entire level, and teleport away any uniques I find, but even so, I feel like that might be suicide. Anywhich way, I should wait till I have a good source of disarming to do so. GV have lots of traps, and I suck at disarming.

Ok, now that I have some decent gloves, and can swap in a ring (combat I guess), I'm going to go questing, genocide style. I guess that means that I load up on all the equip and bus it down to the quest level and hope I don't die. Hopefully the rewards will be worthwhile.

Well, the quest level turned out to be one of those big-arse hourglass shaped undead vaults, and by the time I got there, there was hardly any undead around to genocide. I offed Ar-Pharazon on the level too (much easier this time). Found a few potions of strength, which was nice. Nothing else lootwise.

The next trip down proved to be an amazing level. A '&' vault, a huge empty room (better for Lorgan than me... darn summoners), and a lava vault (one with a bajillion little cubbyholes for goodies). Didn't find anything interesting, but chickened out about halfway through the demons -- ran out of recharging and cure medium wounds. Needed a bunch of those rechargings for wands of dragon frost and cold balls to kill off the mariliths and lesser balrog (like 13 levels OOD). If I had more recharging (or better fire immunity), I'd've dispeled them all (at one point I teleported into a big room with them, but far enough away from them to have a good head start).

Oh well, so dlevel 57 is my deepest in 1M turns.

Now that I left...I shoudl ahve genocided the '&' to collect the remaining treasure (never was able to sort it all out). Oh well. It was hard to find a place to rest after I realized I ran out of cure medium.

Been diving a fair bit. The extra hp for wielding =oCon+4 and Caspanion (thanks to Celegorm!) is really, really noticable. Been clearing Ringwraiths. Scatha would have probably died, but the breath was too much since my con was drained.

I'd really like to run across some *ID*. The aman might be really good, and I must admit, I'm curious about the lead shot randart.

It'd be nice to find a source of res_nether. Haven't seen one all game. Vilya would be good too, while I'm at it :)

On 14.12.2005 23:53 Bandobras wrote:Is there not enough *ID* in the Alchemy Shop? Have you invested in the Alchemist? I had no *ID* in shops untill power 50 and 30000 invested and I'm curious if that is common...

a Heavy Crossbow of Holy Might: Blessed Blade. how funny. :)

On 15.12.2005 16:14 jmiddendorf@hmc.edu wrote:Wow, I just went questing. Twas one of those big-arse vaults, with a few nasties locked away in the center in ore. I used genocide frequently, but there were a lot of uniques and dragons to kill. I offed the following uniques:

Khamul, the Easterling
Dwar, the Lord of Dogs
Ungoliant, the Unlight
Tselakus, the Dreadlord
Murazor, Witch-King of Angmar
The Emperor Quylthulg
Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord
Gyrus, Necromancer-King (I must be head of the local necromancer guild now, eh?)
The Mouth of Sauron
Glaurung, the Father of Dragons

On the "must-kill" list include the Tarrasque and Ancalagon. I don't expect much issue with them, but who knows. I haven't even seen Acalagon...

No, I'm not normally using that axe; I wrestle. I'm not sure how I'm going to kill morgoth. I hope and expect more wands of annihilation and doombolts.

Most of those uniques were offed while I was wraithformed. Looks like they won't cast spells at someone in walls, just melee. Of course, that means that the Quylthulg was trivial... I should email Leon about this.

Bandobras: You shouldn't have to invest to get *ID*, but doing so should greatly increase your chances. I usually invest in the Alchemist's shop and the temple, so I can get more healing potions. I generally find my books, armor, and weapons, so I generally don't invest there. That leaves magic devices, which are generally overpriced in the early game, so I never use it that much. I also doubt that I'd get better than the dungeon. But when it comes to basic supplies, that's where you go to.

As a note, I also consider Gothmog to be a requirement for killing Morgoth (I supppose Sauron is too...). Also, I'd really like a RoP to replace my RoS+5...

There aren't any big Shard or Nexus breathers I can't genocide, and the Tarrasque is the only big Disen breather, and I plan on killing him from a wall, where he'll only melee me, and I guess I'll back into the wall to heal and regain mana (Triumphs of Will is amazing). Just need to find him again...

Aside from hopefully getting a RoP (or 2), I'm ready to go down to the bottom with this kit (aside from removing the axe and perhaps finding the Necronomicon).

I know I've been posting like crazy, but I just offed Sauron. He disenchated a bunch of stuff, but I doubt it'll really matter.

Score almost beats the top score on oook -- 6184.

Anyhoo, I'm still not sure how I exect to kill Morgoth. I imagine I'll try to fry him with annihilation and doombolts, but my short time at this depth has left me with not as many wands as I anticipated. I'd rather not wrestle (but I might), though I do have all my stats sustained, I generally rely on staves in battle,and he does hit to drain. I can get my AC up pretty high with shadow shield and bless, but that didn't seem to stop Sauron from hitting...

I think I'm fine on potions and teh like. Managed to net a second restore mana from the shop. I want some more rechargind scrolls, so I'll town scum (with my excess gold) for a bit and then see if I can get ahold of some more scrolls. Then it's down we go :)

Still no Ancalagon (even seen!). Qzzllup (sp) is also not seen, and Gabriel (shudder) and Vecna. Who knows what else I haven't seen. List of seen, unkilled uniques:

Well, that's it folks. I think this character finished fastest, is the lowest power winner (without a heap of XP left to allocate). and has the highest score.

I knew giant necromancers were good :) Morgoth went down to annihilation (almost exclusively) and doomblasts (for the last star). Genocided to teleported away all the summons (except some which were ignored). Morgy never got a melee blow in on me. He did manage to summon Draebor, Gabriel, Ancalagon, and Omarax, Scatha, and Qlzqqlzuup (Vecna was already there). All were teleported away, and are still alive.

As I kinda expected, Morgy dropped the Necronomicon. Oh well :) Also dropped Grond, the crown, Whispering Death (a fellblade), and Zaracuthra.

I didn't quaff a single potion. Ritual of Blood and Mind over matter go very well together. I teleported a couple of times, but mostly just blinked whenever Morgy came within range, recharging as need be. Was wraithformed most of the battle.

On 16.12.2005 01:03 pav wrote:Not easily. Otherwise it would be already gone long time.

On 16.12.2005 01:13 Bandobras wrote:OK. BTW, thanks very much for the ladder. It is really nice for sharing the joy (as with this splendid victory) and the pain (as with the dumps of my pitiful characters;).

On 16.12.2005 13:36 sangband@runegold.org wrote:An excellent story and a fantastic win! I see I will have to patch up a couple of things...